By mid-century, the Sunday school movement had become extremely popular and Sunday school attendance was a near universal aspect of childhood. Working-class families were grateful for this opportunity to receive an education. Religious education was, of course, always also a core component. The Bible was the textbook used for learning to read. Likewise, many children learned to write by copying out passages from the Scriptures. A basic catechism was also taught, as were spiritual practices such as prayer and hymn-singing. Inculcating Christian morality and virtues was another goal of the movement. Sunday school pupils often graduated to become Sunday school teachers, thereby gaining an experience of leadership not to be found elsewhere in their lives.Content: 39,941 images Source Library:Congregational Library and Archives, Boston, MA

Social Action Missions

The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches created the Council for Social Action in 1934. The Council focused on Christian concern for service, international relations, citizenship, rural life, and legislative, industrial and cultural relations.

The records in this collection trace the Council’s active participation in social action, its engagement in race relations, Indian relations, opposition to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, and the protection of the civil rights of war victims and Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. The collection is sourced from the Congregational Library in Boston, Massachusetts.

This collection reproduces correspondence, reports, speeches, minutes; included are materials relating to the farm workers, poverty programs, Public Law 78, Braceros, labor camps, the United Farm Workers Union and the Delano Grape Strike.

Among the missions’ responsibilities was the establishment of indigenous churches, educational facilities, hospitals, orphanages, and seminaries. The majority of the material in this collection consists of incoming correspondence from the mission field and outgoing correspondence from the Board headquarters. Other primary sources include diary accounts, sermon manuscripts, receipts of sale, and field accounts.
Content: 39,986 images Source Library:
Library of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia

Documenting the church’s educational, evangelical, and medical work, these are records mainly of incoming correspondence from the mission field and outgoing correspondence from the Board headquarters.Content: 20,455 images
Source Library:Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA

Mission work in Asia

covering a wide range of topics such as East-West communication, Christianity in China and other parts of Asia, and China’s political, economic, and cultural landscape.
Date Range: 1817-1901Content: 14,094 images Source Library:
The National Library of China Press

The collection documents the Board of Foreign Missions’ tripartite ministry (Farukhabad, Punjab, and the West Indian missions) in India but also reflects the development of the modern Indian state in a broader sense. Reaction to foreigners generally and Protestant missionaries specifically, discontent with British rule and the development of the Independence movement, and racial and internecine religious warfare between Hindu and Muslim populations are well documented.